…and I have no one else to thank but you, dear reader.

Has it really been one year? I can barely remember what it was like then, but I’ll spare you the usual wall of text that accompanies reflections like these — until after the cut, of course. What, you thought I was going to let up just because it was my blog’s birthday? Never.

fortunately, on the internet celebrations like these are all but impossible

In view of the nice things that well-meaning people have said and the not so nice things that other, more tragically misunderstood people have said, I guess now would be a better time than any to clear the air on the inaugural Anime Blog Awards, of which I happen to be part of the organising committee. We’ve been railed at countless times, and I’ve kept my silence on the matter for quite some time, so this reply is somewhat overdue.

It also goes without saying that poor Impz has been tearing his hair out about the criticism, a matter I was supposed to follow-up with in a more vitriolic post tearing apart the flimsy reasoning and half-baked arguments, among many others, with massive amounts of logic. However, apathy for the misinformed and procrastination both led to me eventually forgetting about making that post, and just as I was going to write one regarding my nominations for the awards, I figured I’d just kill two birds with one stone by posting about them at the same time.

I’ve never viewed this as a popularity contest, if you ask me. The point for me has always been about the nominations and the accompanying transparency — I care about the results like I did the outcome of True Tears, which is to say, somewhat, but not as much as the process of getting there, and it’s this period that I want to highlight. Think of it as a mini-awards of sorts, my little “Up yours, fags!” to those with their inflated egos and/or popular blogs who haven’t even deigned to see where we’re coming from. Heaven forbid we didn’t consult your Excellencies in our bid to make something that everyone could take part in.

Re-reading your favourite manga that you haven’t touched in almost 7 years is like meeting an ex-classmate, or ex-classmates of yours that you haven’t seen for twice or half that time. One part of you wonders if they’ve stayed the same, one part wonders if you’ll recognise them, one part wonders if you’ll be able to talk as casually as you did all those years back, and one part, if you’re thinking about a particular female classmate, wonders if she’s grown up from that adorable girl you had a big crush on back then. My reunion with Love Hina was like that, only with less stiflingly dapper outfit and more pleasant recollection of memories.

softly dreaming, never drunk

Salutations! Someone says, saturnine’s submerged in subterfuge, surreptitiously silent. Stuff that! You sing, “He’s shot down, shown out, that sacrilegious simpleton! Sic him!” Simple simians! Short on sight, your supplementary smarm spent, I spit on your simpering similes! Separate the slinging of mud, the unsightly spat that sears the ABC from the spick-and-span ABA, spotless and sinless in sobriquet and skill!

Stupidity soars! Satisfyingly servile, your shallow sense of substance and slurs of sexism are secondary. My statement stands! Sentence me not to a slothful and static status! Silence! Stroke not yourself senseless with sordid servings of your shameful and sleazy sweet-talk, but soften up! Stop slobbering over your selves, you sickening sapiens! Study what I am about to submit, and snicker at your superficial sharpness.

Surely, to set this off I stewed it over with my syndicate of staunch and steadfast subordinates who suggested and sanctioned this scheme. We set a stage, a span where I would be slandered for a spell, and spurred each other to simulate a sketch of staggering shock and suppressed sadness. A straightforward and self-explanatory soap that successfully swindled. Softly I swore, “Sufferin’ succotash! The saps were spoon-fed!” We shouted with satisfaction.

So as I slowly scrawl these scribbles to solemnize strife long set in satire, so do I sanctify the salient sense of the savvy jpmeyer. Smug as he simpered in his sanitary sanctuary, he smiled at the silly sarcasm, signalling in a suppressed shot that he saw with sensitivity. Was it a stretch of your supposition to speculate that it was sheer shenanigans? Seemingly. Was it a stock standard, a stale stereotype? I suppose.

Speaking as a seemingly spiteful and sinister superstar whose stature was once sullied, I smirk as I script this. Sob as you seize the societies you once snubbed, and shriek in shame! I’ll sum it up in a singular, succinct and sharp word: Suckers. Substantial sneering aside, I’ll shut the sermon for now, and save you the spiel… you may call me S.

Owen S. Happy April Fools!

P.S.: If you didn’t get it and/or fail at the English language, all the blog drama was a joke.

P.P.S.: Feel enraged, amused, vindicated, cheated, exalted, used, relieved, or any combination of the above? Feel free to leave a comment.

P.P.P.S.: Yes, I did have a nice good laugh. GIGO.

P.P.P.P.S.: A hearty thanks to everyone involved, especially those like NovaJinx, Extrange, mellow and IcyStorm who had so much faith in me. Much thanks goes to the ABC, and more importantly CJ for being the one to cast the first stone. Special mention goes out to all the attention whores and two-faced cretins of lesser intelligence who took this occasion to unwittingly bash me, and the ABC by association, doing what this Chinese proverb calls “adding oil to fire”. Best Xanatos-gambit-cum-idiot-pogrom ever.

P.P.P.P.P.S.: I got told. Twice.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S.: Other noteworthy posts include Mike’s and CCY’s.

After the incredibly moving episode 22 and the subsequently adorable and hilarious episode 23, several things dawned on me, in a manner that those subject to particularly amazing anime are wont to do: That I take my parents for granted, and their sacrifices lightly. That more than anything else, they want my dreams to come true over theirs, if they ever had any. That they had set aside all the time and energy and money to mould me into what I am today.

That’s what the penultimate episode of Clannad was about, and I’m not too displeased to say, with a half-smile, a wrinkled brow, and a quivering lip, that I can see what magic this adaptation has worked in the hearts of many a fan four years ago. What amazes me more is how such a supposedly “light” show of a famously maligned genre can reach out with invisible arms from my monitor and, grasping my heart with both hands, squeeze firmly.

Clannad ranks a solid 9 out of 10 on my MyAnimeList now, sitting astride kimikiss and ef; a cut above Kanon’s grudging 8, and leagues above Air’s 4 and 5 score respectively. Which reminds me, do I want to see KyoAni adapting more Key works? I’m not all that sure myself. Given the arduous hike that Everyone’s Favourite Animation Studio™ has been taking, climbing higher and higher up the hill of Quality with each successive work, something in me wants to see planetarian or Little Busters. Before that, though, I’ve got to start at the beginning.

So my predictions in my previous post were wrong. I’m glad they were, for had I been right, it would’ve meant that kimikiss would have been unpredictably predictable, and we all know how well that would have went down. The masses need their closure, even if the more discerning among us can do without all that finality riff-raff, and I suppose it’s nice to have a good old-fashioned choice for once. You win some, you lose some.

I had a feeling the eyecatch would be that of the victorious girls

I know, I haven’t been posting about kimikiss as of late, but I’m sure I explained that in the past few posts or something. Reserving the best for the last when it comes to my viewing schedule always has that effect, and while I’m late to all the discussion and hubbub generated by what seems like an impending anime disaster, I hope to rectify that in a bit with my predictions about how things are going to be wrapped up.

So here’s what the experts have been saying: Jen thinks that love is over after reading spoilers (much like any chances that Kyou et al had of hooking up with Tomoya in Clannad circa episode 18). Michael thinks that he can see it just a little (like all good shounen protagonists do their antagonist’s impossibly quick movements, just before a surprise power-up takes place). CCY’s waffling between endless possibilities (not unlike Tonegawa’s gametheory that ultimately cost him).

What can I possibly add to all three trains of thought at this point? As my friend with benefits Caffeine has pointed out to me in a sleep-deprived haze during my viewing of Kimikiss ep 22 earlier today, there’s more to it than meets the eye. There’s a greater possibility out there that vindicates one opinion, puts paid to another one, and makes the last one seem ultra-conservative in comparison.

The number of posts don’t seem to be letting up any time soon. Ditto this. While I’m officially semi-tired of all the true tears discussion that’s been going on as of late, I still consider it to be awesome even if I’m kind burnt out from people talking about it — you know what they say about too much of a good thing. When was the last time something from this maligned genre provoked so much discussion and dissection, on such a rich level, too? I can understand the rationale behind Shinkai not making that leap from movies to a TV series, if only somewhat.

It happened previously to me with ef, and I don’t know why getting burnt out on discussion about a good anime happens, because it technically shouldn’t. Maybe everyone’s already repeating what I already know, and I can’t be arsed to comment, even if I’ve read their posts. Maybe I like talking about a series better when it’s indie, although that wouldn’t explain Clannad. Maybe I need to read less blogs, even if this goes against what I believe about reading more. But I digress.

This rather lengthy dialogue I had with Mike of AnimeDiet was conducted last Sunday, under the guise of dissecting what I felt was the core theme of both kimikiss and true tears, and what makes them such a powerful experience: character inconsistency, and the difference between what a character feels and what he or she subsequently demonstrates. That part’s still there, but it’s buried in a plethora of other stuff, all of which I came up on the fly. The second half of this dialogue is linked to at the end of this post.

some might consider not getting this to be a good thing, but I beg to differ

While I was cropping, rotating, and resizing headers for the new layout I thought to myself, “How can I make this interesting?” CCY had the idea of incorporating the relevant taglines into his rotating headers, but they weren’t funny. Kabitzin had an equally great idea of inserting a witty, self-referential line into his layout that he occasionally changes, but it didn’t coincide with his headers, and sometimes barely made sense unless he explained it. Then I had a flash of inspiration. Why not use both?

This is a test of otaku knowledge that isn’t as balanced or fair as I’d have liked (because they include Touhou references, even if they’re not particularly hard), but I’m curious to see how far my in-jokes go — popular memes, literary references, medical anatomy jargon and song lyrics among them — they’re all relevant to the image on which the text’s located, and I’m wondering if my readers ever pay attention to them. The filenames may or may not be helpful. Two of them require a dictionary (unless you’re a medical student), and another two require Google (or a decent knowledge of post-/prog-rock song titles). How many did you get, and can you explain the connection between the image and tagline? Answers after the cut.

The problem with anime references or puns is that they usually fall apart quite miserably when you attempt to throw two or more of them together. It’s the sheer futility of making a Yoko Kanno reference in a Nanoha post title (a Venn diagram would easily illustrate the naivete behind this), or stringing together similarities between a not-so-popular mahou shoujo anime and an extremely famous shounen one (on top of a Narnia parallel) that leaves much to be desired, but I try anyway. If you manage to catch both references in the post title, well, consider yourself to have otaku street cred.

if recent episodes are anything to go by, he’s getting there